Bummer. 

https://www.circa.com/story/2018/06/08/business/5g-will-mean-more-cell-towers-in-your-neighborhood-heres-what-theyll-look-like-and-how-theyll-work

Well TIL 5G is a thing.

My area is lucky to have 3G service.The phone companies promote the 4G service-but is rare here when I look at the indicator on my phone or IPad.

I don't like this. I think 4G is fine enough.

I don't like this. I think 4G is fine enough.

Agreed, this is just pointless and the "towers" are hideous.

Agreed, this is just pointless and the "towers" are hideous.

Agreed

Bummer.  

https://www.circa.com/story/2018/06/08/business/5g-will-mean-more-cell-towers-in-your-neighborhood-heres-what-theyll-look-like-and-how-theyll-work

Bummer..? Why..?

It seems to me that the NIMBY effect is rearing its head again. People expect their phones to work, but they don't want the masts anywhere near them 

Bummer..? Why..?

It seems to me that the NIMBY effect is rearing its head again. People expect their phones to work, but they don't want the masts anywhere near them 

5G is unessesary. Just more radiation in my opinion.

5G is unessesary. Just more radiation in my opinion.

The technology of mobile phones isn't limited to phone calls, or even text messages and the internet.

There are applications where the additional speed of 5G will be extremely useful. I used to work for the local bus company before I retired. My job was to handle requests for CCTV footage from the on-board cameras. These could come from the police, insurance providers, or company management, for incidents and collisions, etc. This initially was done with VHS cassettes, which meant changing an awful lot of tapes several times a week, an extremely time-consuming task. It was also impossible to get footage quickly, having to wait until the bus returned to the depot at the end of service.

This system (surprisingly reliable, actually) was eventually replaced by digital recording to hard drives. These again were time-delay systems, with me having to wait until the bus returned to base before I could access it. The system we had at the time I left was quite sophisticated, and was capable of real-time transmission from a moving vehicle. However, due to the limitations of 3 and 4G, it was restricted to wi-fi transmission with antennas being mounted around the depot.

With 5G, it would be possible to have real-time transmission back to base from a moving vehicle anywhere, which for an urgent incident such as a robbery or a serious collision, would be invaluable.

5G is unessesary. Just more radiation in my opinion.

With everyone eventually switching to 5G you might find that overall radiation drops, as it doesn't need to be at such high levels.

With everyone eventually switching to 5G you might find that overall radiation drops, as it doesn't need to be at such high levels.

Indeed. Although I do get slightly irritated when people go on about "radiation" when talking about radio frequency energy, as though it was the same thing as a nuclear reactor. It isn't, and doesn't affect the body in the same way.

Granted, you don't want to spend too long next to a high power broadcasting transmitter, but the levels coming from a mobile phone mast aren't going to do you any damage at the distances you are from them, despite what some scaremongers would have you believe.

I've been a licensed radio amateur for 35 years and have used transmitters of far higher power than any mobile transmitter, and I'm still here and haven't (so far, anyway) suffered any ill effects. Unless you count being extremely short tempered with idiots who think a mobile mast is going to fry their brains but still complain when their phones don't work  

Indeed. Although I do get slightly irritated when people go on about "radiation" when talking about radio frequency energy, as though it was the same thing as a nuclear reactor. It isn't, and doesn't affect the body in the same way.

Granted, you don't want to spend too long next to a high power broadcasting transmitter, but the levels coming from a mobile phone mast aren't going to do you any damage at the distances you are from them, despite what some scaremongers would have you believe.

I've been a licensed radio amateur for 35 years and have used transmitters of far higher power than any mobile transmitter, and I'm still here and haven't (so far, anyway) suffered any ill effects. Unless you count being extremely short tempered with idiots who think a mobile mast is going to fry their brains but still complain when their phones don't work  

Well, you know how many people tend to babble nonsense about things they have no idea about. I think it is pretty well demonstrated by the famous "Dangerous Dihydrogen monooxide kills and governments are doing nothing about" things going once awhile around and irritating many idiot activists (and making me happy at first and sad a bit later - happy because I consider that as a good joke, but sad about the humanity when realizing how many people take it seriously)...

The transmitter itself is not the RF hazard-but the antenna that the transmitter feeds into.Right now there are 3 250Kw  SW transmitters running 20,30,40 ft from me as I type this.The radiation from them is very low or even non existent.More HEAT comes off them than RF.Out in the tower field is where the RF is and its beamed upward.You could get radiation from the open wire 300 ohm blanced lines feeding the antennas-good to stay away from them as well.the INSIDe of the tranmsiiters out heare is where the danger lies-HV AC,DC voltages,hot parts,and some moving parts like blowers or pumps.For maintenance all of this is shut down-main power off,HV parts grounded.You touch ANYTHING in the transmitter first with a grounding hook.

The transmitter itself is not the RF hazard-but the antenna that the transmitter feeds into.Right now there are 3 250Kw  SW transmitters running 20,30,40 ft from me as I type this.The radiation from them is very low or even non existent.More HEAT comes off them than RF.Out in the tower field is where the RF is and its beamed upward.You could get radiation from the open wire 300 ohm blanced lines feeding the antennas-good to stay away from them as well.the INSIDe of the tranmsiiters out heare is where the danger lies-HV AC,DC voltages,hot parts,and some moving parts like blowers or pumps.For maintenance all of this is shut down-main power off,HV parts grounded.You touch ANYTHING in the transmitter first with a grounding hook.

High power tranmitters like that are one thing, very small micro-cells such as will be used for 5G are a totally different proposition. I doubt they'll be running more than a watt or so, if that.

People just shriek "ooooh, radiation..!!" and run a mile. But they still expect their phones to work.

I doubt these "cells" would have anything more than 100-ish mW of output power.
The reason is not that much to save on cost, but to save the electromagnetic spectrum, so to allow to serve as much devices as possible at the required data throughput on a given area (city,...).

If such devices have too high power, they "wipe out" every communication in given direction (assume the antenna systems still allow dynamic direction control, but even there we are talking about at least 30deg wide beam) on the same channel (frequency and spread spectrum dithering code; assume some form of CDMA), but serving just one customer there.
Therefore the output power of these things is dynamically controlled so to cover just the required area, so short distance away the same channel could be used by serving another customer at the same time without any unwanted disturbance.

The same concept is used in the design and frequency allocations on all broadcasting, but as the systems evolve, the areas just shrunk.
With GSM it was few km, so power levels of 5..10W (on the tower side), here the cells are barely 100m small, so with some directional antenna gain easy to cover by 100mW or so, even when supporting 100's Mbps.